For those of you that are familiar with the "If You Give a Pig a Pancake" series, this will make sense, to those of you that are unfamiliar with this series, I'll just appear nutty as usual.

If You Give Mommy a King-Sized Bed
If you give a mommy a few nights on a king size bed in some fancy hotel, she
is probably going to want to get her own king size bed. And if you get that
mommy her very own king size bed, she is probably going to decide that it is
very important to have new sheets. When she is out buying sheets, she will
likely see a duvet and while she is deciding on whether she should get the
duvet, she will see the perfect soft throw for over the big new bed and decide to
get it all.

After she is home, she will realize that the great big bed looks
funny with no headboard and all the new blankets slide right down on the floor every night, so she will go looking for a headboard/footboard. While looking
she’ll see a headboard and footboard in an old timey brass she likes so much but is really a bit pricey. She will lament to her husband how that specific old timey brass bed is perfect and the only one she has ever, ever wanted in her whole life ever and how if she gets it she will never ever ask for another thing(she has learned this effective tactic from her four year old) Once the bed set is delivered, mommy will realize that the old nightstands no
longer fit so she’ll have to go find new ones and while she is
shopping, she will see a really nice smelling candle and a few throw pillows and those will end up in the
cart too.

And just when Dad thinks he doesn’t have any money left for
mommy to spend, she’ll give Dad a little something-something, and you know what happens
when you give dad a little something-something, Mommy will probably want to go
shopping again.

Note: If you have not yet read this series and you have kids, I highly recommend it.

There has been a lot of press given to the many, many recent reports of gay bashing and bullying, of ignorant public officials spewing forth hate, or intolerant, bigoted young adults invading a very private moment and then posting it on Facebook for all to see.

I am so glad these things are getting the press they deserve, finally. I am so thankful that people who have been scared silent or way past the coming out stages of their own lives, have taken the time to reassure gay kids and teenagers that it gets better. How awesome that the same technology that devastated one young man's life could be used to spare so many others.

Along with the "It gets better" conversations that are being started to support gay youth, we also need to be having other conversations. We need to be having conversations with all of our kids about bullying and name-calling. Our children do what we do. They model our behavior, they look to us for boundaries. Do you name call?

I did. Without even be aware of it. Several years ago my husband and I got into a fight one night, over almost nothing I'm sure, just two adults getting cranky and resentful over the workload that sometimes piles up. After a heated discussion escalated, I told him to stop being a dick, or you're acting like an asshole, I don't remember exactly but you get the idea. He looked at me hurt, took a deep breath and walked away.

Later on when he had calmed down and we were talking things over he said to me, "please don't call me names, it just makes me feel really bad."

I instantly got defensive realizing that I had hurt him. I hadn't thought the words really meant anything. "I wasn't saying anything personal, I told him, it was just I was really angry with you and venting, a general word like that is pretty innocuous, I explained, like when you get upset and call me bitchy or something like that."

"I don't ever call you names," he said earnestly. I thought for a moment, he was right. He has never once, since we have been together, called me any name that wasn't nice or at least licentious. He has told me he is upset with me, or feeling unsupported. He has told me he is stressed out and doesn't feel like I understand. He has told me what he needs from me whether it is a hug, reassurance, a pep talk or the like, but he has never called me anything derogatory.

This was quite the wake up call for me and I have admitted on more than one occasion that my husband came into our relationship with a Masters while I was just out of Kindergarten (metaphorically speaking mind you). I come from a home environment where judgement, shame, coercion, disappointment and guilt assured your compliance. I learned that name calling, in its milder forms, was acceptable. I learned that you don't apologize, or take responsibility for your actions, ever. And I learned that talking about your feelings got you ignored or derided and asking for what you needed made you needy (maybe they need an "it gets better" campaigns for people from dysfunctional families).

Gene and I talk to the kids about this bullying and name calling all the time. They are kids, so of course, in spite of our instructions, they occasionally call each other names. When this happens they get lengthy soliloquies about how the world is hard enough without making it hard for each other. My eleven year old understands what gay is. He knows how we feel and he knows how and why some people justify treating homosexuals badly. We have talked about how boys can use words like faggot, homo, queer and the like to make other boys feel small, less than or isolated. We have told him that not only do we have an expectation that he never call someone names but that we expect him to step in if someone else is, unless he feels his safety is at risk, in which case he should inform an adult. We have role-played and given him scenarios so that he can be empowered to come up with some strategies before it happens.

I don't think any of my kids are gay. My son is unquestionably interested in girls, and much to my delight, smart girls. My middle daughter is, at least right now, sort of boy crazy. And my youngest daughter just wants to marry her cat. But if they are, or maybe one of their friends is, I want them to know they can come to me for help, or just someone safe to talk to and I want my children to be open to friends, wherever they may find them. Because sometimes one good friend is all it takes to be okay.

About ten years back, I started making individual seed bead necklaces. They were not terribly complicated or creative but I did all different colors and patterns and the most important thing was it kept my head quiet(ish).

When my anxiety threatened to get the better of me, I would take out the filament thread and beads and pointedly string away.

Now, years later, these necklaces hang on a mission style coat rack in my bedroom. Individually they aren't anything special but together their thick rope is quite impressive. They are thick enough that I can't quite circle my hands around them.

They are the combination of thousands of small pieces of translucent glass, pulled together into something that transcends all the individual pieces. For me, they are the many, many individual steps it takes to get somewhere more solid.

I woke up today to my three year old's hand on my arm, her silent way of asking for me to lift her into bed with me. I pulled her in and she nestled into me like the smaller of two spoons, said my hair was sweaty but I'm still beautiful and told me I could draw pictures on her back like it was a reward, which it is. We did this for about an hour until my husband had enough of trying to sleep through our giggling and got up. I made breakfast for all three kids, just some fruit and yesterday's leftover donuts from Clare's birthday breakfast. My ten year old was happy and helpful. My seven year old was still floating from her birthday weekend. I had a cup of coffee that my husband made while I cleaned out my spice cabinet and made ratatouille for a warm, hearty lunch. It's one of my husband's favorites and I had everything on hand so what better valentine then to feed him something good. These days, my husband is working from home so I get to see him all the time. Today, my kids are home, playing and laughing in the backyard. Right now, I am reminded that the best thing in life is wanting what you have.

While I tuck her in:"Mommy, can I have a kiss?"Of course you can," I kiss her."Oh, Mommy, I love your kisses.""I love your kisses too.""Mommy you are my best friend.""Awwww, that’s so sweet.""Now Mommy get out of my bed. "

One afternoon, I see her crying:"Izzy, why are you crying?""I’m not crying.""It’s okay to cry, I cried today.""You cried?""Yeah, remember when you were in the shower with Daddy after you threw up and I sat on the toilet and cried?""You fell off the toilet?""No, I was worried about you because your tummy has been sick and that made me cry.""Don’t be sad Mommy, it’s ok," she says and puts her arms around me.Just then, my husband walks in.

"Dad, Mommy was crying because she fell off the potty."

After digging into the Halloween candy:Me: You have a big chunk of sucker stuck to your shirt, let me get that.

Institute a housewide one outfit for one week policy, enlist help of family-size bottle of FaBreeze.

Quit your job and eliminate commuting carbon emissions.

Support your local growers, buy your weed only from local, sustainable harvesters.

Traditional house cleaners are expensive and toxic, stop cleaning and embrace domestic dishevelment.

Cancel your expensive and wasteful electronic security system and invest in a 100% recycled material machete, a green gun or a personal Zombie.

Cut your shower time in half, masturbate in bed.

Cancel the gym membership and set your thermostat. Low in winter, shivering=exercise. Turn off the AC in summer, sweating reduces unsightly water weight gain.

Unplug large appliances like washer, dryer, vacuum cleaner when you're not using them, better yet, leave them unplugged all the time. Dishwasher is surprisingly efficient but paper plates are better.

This Halloween, forgo the standard cavity-inducing candy. Eschew giving away granola bars, popcorn balls or even pennies--too expensive. Instead, this Halloween, dish out a heaping spoonful of good advice. Kids will appreciate your gentle nudgings to floss more or eat their locally grown sustainable broccoli much more than they would ever enjoy that KitKat or delicious premium Dove chocolate.

She's going to wake up because of the thunder and lightening. When she wakes up, she's going to get scared because we don't get storms where we live and she's not used to them. She's going to want me. She's going to remember I am sleeping downstairs. She, in all her self-reliance will come to me rather than cry for me. She will try to navigate the steep staircase in the dark and foggy with sleep she will fall, breaking her neck.

This is what my mind went over and over like fingers on a worry stone. It was 2am and I had to get up at 5am for a flight taking my husband and I on vacation, leaving my three young children with my mother and stepfather, in a house with stairs, and guns, and a lake, and boats and big hunting dogs, and no childproofing and a million other possible dangers that could get my heart thumping wildly in an instant.

I worried about the big kids too but at six and ten, I knew they could navigate those steps even half asleep. I knew they would call for me if they were too scared. I knew they followed the lake rules and I knew that the worst that would happen to them was dehydration or sugar overload induced barfing. But the baby was still vulnerable and too daring and sneaky.

My mind went back to the stair/storm scenario. The image of my two year old with her neck broken at the bottom of the stairs flashed graphically in my mind against my will and it was too much for me, I had to go check her.

I got out of bed slowly, trying not to disturb my husband. It was going to be bad enough with one of us exhausted the next day, two tired cranky people spelled argument. I walked the stairs noting each area that could spell instant disaster for a small foot missing a step. I found her snuggled with her big brother, bum to bum in the full sized guest bed. I took a deep breath, fully breathing in the improbability of my own anxiety.

I covered them both back up and peeked in my middle daughter, limbs akimbo in the king sized island of a bed with her great grandmother. I got myself a drink of water and quietly padded down the stairs, feeling myself relax a bit with each step. I settle in to bed and as I drift again, the storm picks up. I will my mind to quiet down and let me find sleep.

I would like to say that having checked on the baby, I was able to nestle down and drift into dreamland. Rather, my night included five more identical trips up the stairs to check on her before relenting to my impulse to grab a comforter and go sleep on the floor in her room ready to intercept her should she awake. I think they have a pill for this, thank god it does not hit me often.

I was sitting in a beautiful, old hotel in Portland, Oregon on that strange and sad day. My habit when on the road working was to leave the television on to help me sleep. So when I woke up that Tuesday morning I thought it was a movie that I was watching on the screen, I must have left the channel on HBO, I thought. Then I changed the channel looking for some local news and almost every channel had the same images, over and over. I watched in disbelief, this could not be real and yet it was. I was stuck in Portland, all the planes were grounded. I wanted to be home. Not my southern California apartment but home, back in Wisconsin with my mom and the rest of my family.

My hotel phone rang. "Do you have your tv on?" asked my boss who was in a room at the same hotel one floor down."Yes," I answered shakily."Are you ok?" he asked."I think so, I don't know, I don't want to be here.""Me either.""Have you spoken to Lisa?"(his wife and a flight attendant)"Yes, she wants me to come home."

The executive coffee suite was on my floor, just around the corner from my room. I didn't bother to get dressed but put a hotel robe on and wandered out to get a cup of coffee. The room had coffee and bakery, chairs, couches and work desks and the room was filled with business people who didn't want to watch these events unfold alone.

My boss came in, got a coffee and we went back to my room and sat on the edge of the bed watching for another hour trying to figure out what we do next. We had meetings and sales presentations planned at the Portland radio/tv stations. None of which could happen today given the events. You can't call people and ask them to come to a tv pitch meeting when they had just watched people throw themselves from a burning building.

We went to our clients offices. We watched the ten plus monitors in their newsroom with feeds from all over the country. We were overloaded with images and talking heads. Some of us cried, some of us didn't. I chewed my fingernails down to the nubs, something I hadn't done since I was seven, the year my parents got divorced.

We were still there working when they tentatively opened the airspace to some craft, though not regular commercial flights yet. I was on my computer in an empty boardroom working. The boardroom had a big open skylight and when a plane flew overhead I gasped and covered my head. The skies had been busy with air traffic in the days before that day, then nothing. The sound of an aircraft ahead after all that quiet was jarring.

Finally, I got to go home.

Travelling got much more difficult after that. You had to go much earlier, everything took longer, everyone was nervous, hostile, paranoid, nobody wanted to make a mistake. Those first few weeks after the planes resumed normal-ish flights, the bulk of the people on them were business travellers who had to fly and people finally making their way home after being stranded somewhere else.

It was fucking grim. Nobody said much, everyone still looked shell shocked. It didn't get much better from there. All of a sudden no boxcutters(not a problem for most people), we had to take our shoes off, much more extensive searches, sometimes inappropriate searches, watch lists, mothers not being allowed to bring their own breast milk, it got really weird there for awhile. I remember stopping to eat lunch during a layover. The only thing they had was Chili's and I had a two hour wait so I sat down and looked over the menu. When the waitress came, she informed me of the few choices that were available. Why just these I asked. They had stopped serving anything off the menu that might require a knife, even a plastic knife.

On September 11, 2001, my husband and I had not yet met. We have since shared with each other, as I'm sure many people have, exactly what we were doing on that particular day. I don't know anyone who doesn't remember. It's odd for me to think that I can talk to nearly anyone and we can place ourselves exactly where we were at the very same moment in time.

Those events have come and gone. The visceral anguish is gone for most. The open wound has faded to leave in it's place an angry, red, raised scar.

No one left that morning thinking they would not have the afternoon or evening. No one kissed their children aware that it was the last time. People rushed out the door, to work or school as they did every other Tuesday, unaware that this day would be wholly different.

For my son, today is a history lesson, a day to wear red, white and blue, a careful conversation with parents and teachers. For my husband and I, it is a reminder to cherish every moment of every day, to make sure to always say I love you and never leave angry because you never know when it is going to be your day.*Originally posted 9/11/08

We were inexplicably watching some awful reality show together. If I am remembering correctly, the tv was on that channel and we were both too lazy to look for the clicker. As an aside, do you call it the clicker or the remote? Is that a regional thing? When I moved to California, my friends would make fun of me for asking to stop at the Time Machine on our way out.

"What are you going to go back in time and stop yourself from buying those jeans again?"

"Looking for your boyfriend Scott Bakula?"

Yeah, ha, ha, ha. When I was growing up in Wisconsin, the company that owned most of the ATMs was named Tyme, hence people would say "I need to stop at a Tyme machine."

Anyhow, back to the awful reality show. It's about some Vegas pool party schizz and there were these two Guidos picking up on their servers. They were pretty douchy but in really good shape. My husband noticed and said,

"these guys clearly have no kids or high stress job if they have time to stay in that kind of shape. I'd love to have a fraction of those muscles."

"Yeah me too."

"Ouch."

"No, I meant me, I would like to have some of those muscles, not you.

"Whatever, I guess I won't be having dessert."

Then this weekend we were talking about replacing our carpet with hardwood floors because we have three animals and pissy carpet. My husband wants to do it himself and I am afraid of having to live with floors that look like we did them ourselves. Plus, I am allergic to physical labour of this sort and I am pretty sure I would have to be his ass-istant on this one. So I was trying to convince him to hire someone to do the work or at least let me pay one of my client's husbands who does hardwood floors to walk us thru the installation.

"Honey, I can do this myself, what are you worried about?"

I then proceed to laundry list every fail or semi-fail we've had on the diy projects. Note to wives, this is apparently tantamount to your husband commenting that your ass is getting fat because I hurt my man's feelings. Then I top it off with the kicker, slipped out of my mouth before I even thought about it.

"Honey, you're no Mike Holmes."

The silence was deafening. Of course there was only one way out of this one,

"I mean with home improvement of course, I mean come on honey, it's Mike Holmes. But when Mike Holmes goes home and doinks his wife every night, you know what she says to him? Pretty good honey, but you're no Mr. FormelyFun."

From the Orange County Crew:1. It's okay to wear $800 shoes even if you can't pay your rent.2. Talking to your girlfriends about your marital problems rather than your husband is a much better way to resolve them.3. The best way to bond with your kids is smoking pot or downing tequila shots.4. When you have had a rough year with your husband, the best way to renew your commitment to being married isn't counseling or commitment, it's a tattoo of his name on your finger or a lavish vow renewal ceremony and presents.5.Eviction notices are no reason to stop shopping, in fact, shopping might be the best way to feel better about the cardboard box you are about to live in.6.It's good to be conscious about the environment. The best way? Recycle boyfriends.7.Crafting might make you a millionaire.8.Always look like an aging Las Vegas tranny showgirl. Always.9Your underage kids showing up at your work party drunk is no reason to go home.10.Working out is a job.

From the New York Girls:1. Money can't buy you class but it can get a "spoken word" song produced.2. It's perfectly normal to go on vacation with people you can't stand.3. When you don't want to hear uncomfortable truths, just keep saying "zip it" in people's faces.4. Deranged is the new black.5. Gossiping IS a job.6. Posing for nude pictures for your husband is whorish but spreading your "Betty" for Playboy is classy.7. When the going gets tough, the tough buy seemingly endless amounts of high ticket luxury goods.8. Husbands are one part drama fodder, two parts cash machine.9. Insist that the help always call you by your most formal name or title.10.The USDA pyramid actually looks something like this:BotoxRetalyneCollagen SiliconePrescription DrugsFrom the Jersey Housewives:1. If you go to a child's cancer fundraiser with a bunch of uninvited mob bruisers and Hell's Angels(whom you have not bought tickets for), and you are not welcomed warmly, someone is out to get you.2. It's normal for parents to spend thousands of dollars on clothes for little girls, tens of thousands on a birthday party and then declare bankruptcy hoping to skirt over $11 million in debt.3. They're called bubbies, not breasts.4. Stripper car washes will be bigger than the Ipad, just wait.5. When the camera start rolling is the optimal time to go off your meds.6. Delusion is a requirement and an art form that can always be elevated.7. Infant christenings are the new weddings. What do you mean you don't have a DJ?8.Never upstage your stage mom.9.There is absolutely no irony in saying you're a nice girl while you deftly work a stripper pole.10. If you join on as a RH, you get a jewelry line, a tell-all book, a cookbook, a parenting book, a gay club themed single or a sex-tape, your choice.

Him: What movie do you want to see?Me: A-Team.Him: You hate shoot 'em up action films, that's so sweet, you're doing it for me, awww..Me: You and Liam Neeson, arrrrr(drooling.)

----------------------------------------------------------------

As husband leaves for business trip that Sunday

Me: Ok, I love you so much and just remember...Him: Remember what?Me: No whores.Him: Uh, okay.Me: And I hope you're plane doesn't go down.Him: Thanks.Me: But if it does, thanks in advance for the insurance money, that was awesome of you.Him: And if it does go down, promise me you'll remarry, you can go after Liam Neeson.Me: Aw, if you died, I'd have the perfect in, you know hey Liam we're both widowed, wanna go see the A-Team?Him: With your luck when my plane goes down, it will land right on Liam Neeson's house.Me: That would be so sad for me and Liam.

Ah, summer vacation is almost here. I have been all aflutter trying to plan daycare as needed and activities that keep the summer from becoming a three month Spongebob marathon. My husband and I are dropping the kids off in Wisconsin with my parents and then we are going to spend eight days in New England.

Funny story, or maybe sad depending on how you look at it.... Gene and I decided on Boston as our point of entry into the Northeast. Neither of us had been further than New York and the two hour, reasonably priced flight from Milwaukee clinched it. In spite of my tremendous failings in geography, I knew that from Boston, we might be able to visit several surrounding states. I kept typing Boston and Maine and Rhode Island into Google, hoping to get some ideas of proximity so that we could see as much as possible without spending too much time gettingthere rather than being there. So New England kept coming up and I thought, yes, we should go there too.

You are not reading this wrong, I thought New England was it's own local, separate from Boston and Maine and Rhode Island. I didn't think it was a state exactly, perhaps a city in one of the states or something vaguely ambiguous like how Washington DC is neither part of Maryland or Virginia. Of course I am the same girl who sophomore year of highschool raised her hand to correct the teacher that Washington DC was in fact the capital city of Washington the state. Thankfully I mentally put together that they were on separate ends of the country before I was called upon.

The best part is that when I asked my husband what and where New England was, certain that I had to be the only one lacking some fundamental US geography knowledge, he had a correct notion of the where but thought it was a state. I felt vindicated because my husband is a very smart man with a Master's degree. He however, was not all together happy with me outing his lack of knowledge on all thing Nor'easterly, and used his birth in California as well as the fact that his master's is not in geography as an explanation for said lack of knowledge. I also blame my misinformation on the New England Patriots. I think that a region getting to put their name on a football team that is based in Massachusetts is unnecessarily confusing for map moron's like myself.

Anyhow, I would like to once again thank Wikipedia for correcting the severe gaps in my public school education.*

*Don't email me angry teachers, I am using public school as the scapegoat for my own academic failings. Truthfully, I was probably outside around back smoking cigarettes during this particular lesson.

There I was, face up, laying on the just made bed contemplating which part of my to do list I was going to tackle first. I was staring up at the lazily spinning ceiling fan, not really looking at anything, just silently thinking when you dropped from the fan and landed right in my face, smack between the eyes.

Seriously, that was so uncool.

What happened next is a bit of a blur but involves me yelling for my husband, and shaking my head more vigorously than a fifteen year old boy at a Slayer concert circa 1992. There was a bit of keening followed by a three minute attack of severe heebie jeebies. The worst part was I still didn't know what had fallen on me and where it was.

Then I saw you lollygagging about on my comforter.We have nurtured an uneasy truce in the past, you and I, but I have no choice but to view this as an all out declaration of war. Sure you and yours have already sustained some casualties but I've told you, you get free run of the bathroom from midnight to six am, rest of the time it's mine and if I see you, you got a date with a sizable wad of toilet paper. I refuse to call an exterminator, I won't make someone else do my bidding and truthfully, I'm phobic about chemicals. But seriously, if you can base jump on my face with impunity, just skulk with one eye open from now on and watch out for my fucking foot.

Have you seen any of the Electrolux commercials with Kelly Ripa? You know, the ones where she manages her high pressure job(s), makes cupcakes, has a dinner party, washes, folds and puts away clothes, makes chocolate strawberries, hosts a sleepover and a birthday party for a dog... all set to the Bewitched theme.

The commercials that command you to "be more amazing!"

Am I the only one who sees these as a giant feminist backlash?One of the biggest wrong turns women ever took was making the work we do appear effortless. I say appear because any woman or man who has done the work that is traditionally seen as female, knows it is anything but effortless. I have also read several studies that show the mechanization of housework with the inventions and technological improvements of appliances increased, not decreased the amount of housework that women do in part because it raised expectations. For me, showing Kelly Ripa, a woman who probably works no fewer than 50 hours a week and has multileveled staff to help her manage her responsibilities, effortlessly managing her household is a crock of poo fondue. I would be very surprised if she didn't have a full-time housekeeper, maybe two. And seriously, I'm not saying she shouldn't, I'm guessing she juggles about twenty dozen more important things than I do. I am saying that when a high profile woman like this tells us that we need to "be more amazing" then we are doing it wrong. We are priming the pump of motherhood for depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia, eating disorders, isolation, et. al..

So Kelly Ripa, keep making your chocolate strawberries and being "more amazing," I'll be over here yelling at my kids and looking at my pile of laundry. Oh and Electrolux? If you want my hard earned dollars spent on your over-priced hunks of steel and plastic, how about showing a man using them?

I have been writing, just not here. I have been putting my busy little fingers to the keyboard and punching out my would be book about life as a brazilian waxer . All of my favorite stories that I've held back because they were good enough, funny enough to maybe be published. It was so smooth, it was coming out so easy. I put together my chapters with titles in an hour of deep thought in the passenger seat of my minivan driving with the husband to drop the kids off at Grandma's. I roughed out five chapters in the following five days. I had the rest outlined in another two days. All of a sudden, I had three chapters at what I would call ready. It was coming out so easy that it felt serendipitous, like this was when it was supposed to happen.

Then my computer lost power in the middle of working on it two weeks ago. I had continually saved so I didn't worry if I lost the last edit I did. Except when I went to open my document the next morning, the file was 9 pages of number signs instead of 50 pages of words. I called my software engineer husband, hoping there was an easy fix. He turned around on his way to work after dropping off our daughter to come rescue me. No such luck. Somehow, the file was hopelessly corrupted. There were no recent temporary versions, he could not repair the original file and a three day search of the hard drive offered nothing. And of course, although my fingers clicked control-S about every two minutes without thinking, I had not saved another copy somewhere else in days. I had been too productive to think to back up my work somewhere else.

I had one copy that held my first 20 pages, all of my outlines but more than half of my work was gone. There were a lot of tears, too many what ifs and profound disappointment when my husband could not undo my mistake.

So here I am, two weeks later. I'm done crying about it. The good thing is although I lost a lot of work, these are stories I know, I can do the work again. My problem is, this thing that was pouring out of me so beautifully, now feels like work. It is tinged by disappointment, the stress around it has made it unfun. I keep opening it, hoping it will comeback, that feeling I had before it exploded. How do you get that back?

So apparently a bunch of little girls have contracted salmonella from kissing frogs. Thank you Walt Disney. Come on girls, kissing frogs is a metaphor. Not like when mommy says you are making her crazy, that's hyperbole. Or when your parents tell you you're a crybaby that's just honesty. Now, I don't want to minimize the potential dangers of salmonella but girls, FormerlyFun spent a good 15+ years in the dating world and there are way worse things you could have caught than a little dating diarrhea. Take it as a cautionary tale of a cautionary tale, get yourself some yogurt, stay hydrated and when your freshman boyfriend suggests you go under the bleachers(another metaphor), remember what happens when you put things in your mouth.

Have you ever read the Ramona series by Beverly Cleary? I read it somewhere around the age of seven or eight and to this day, I remember portions of it vividly. I also recall laughing so hard during quiet reading time that my teacher threatened to send me out of the room. There is nothing like being told to stop laughing that makes it even more difficult to stop laughing. In one of the books Ramona, at the time a spirited kindergartner, is told by her teacher to "sit here for the present." Of course the teacher means only that she take a seat temporarily. For Ramona, excitement ensues when she contemplates this unknown present she will be receiving, then of course, confusion when the day ends without her getting the promised gift.

I had much the same feeling yesterday when I sat in my first Zen Buddhist meditation orientation. The Zen master said "be present in each moment" and I imagine myself, nestled in a box, limbs folded on themselves, wrapped in brightly colored paper with an iridescent cellophane bow festooning my head. Biting the side of my cheek, I realized I am probably as immature and easily humored now as I was at eight. "Be present in each moment," the Master urged us. The promise being that if I sit here with my legs folded, being still(adult Buddhisty word for quiet and not at all fidgety)I will get rewarded with the thirty-something mom version of Disneyland: calmness, acceptance, enlightenment, a clean refrigerator and organized mind.

Some meditations ask that you clear your mind of thought. The goal of this particular meditation was to focus on your breath allowing the thoughts to come as they will, acknowledge them, and then return to the breath. The problem with doing this, this being conscious of your internal voice is that you notice what a neurotic little chatter bug you are.

Ok, close your eyes. Keep them closed, don't get distracted. Hmm, I smell perfume. Is that Aqua Di Gio? Oh, I don't like that smell, definitely hate it. Still, it is better than Patchouli and armpit which is what I expected half these hippy types to smell like. Hippy types? What am I, my eighty year old Grandpa? I do like sandalwood though, used sparingly. You know what I should do when I get home is make more of those homemade essential oil laundry sheets. Maybe I should give those to people for Christmas, wait that's right Gene and I decided no more consumer Christmas, icknay of the gift-ay, but does a homemade gift really promote consumerism? Probably because someone might feel they needed to get you something in return. Wait I'm supposed to be focusing or not focusing or focusing on breathing, wait how did I get to dryer sheets? What is wrong with me? You know I should really give my internal voice an Australian accent or something just to spice things up a bit.

This is just a small snippet of my stream of consciousness, I could write another fifteen paragraphs but believe me, it doesn't get any more interesting than that. I'm told it gets easier to shut off this dialogue, the internal equivalent of what crazy people say out loud. It would be helpful to eliminate the negative chatter of you shoulds, you shouldn'ts or any of the other tracks that keep me from being the me that is free of all that. Still, I would miss the neurotic girl who's head is full of stories, impressions--she has a good vocabulary, makes me laugh, keeps me company and tells me it's ok to buy more shoes so she can't be all bad.

If you drive a Maserati, a pretty woman would like nothing more than to hold your shaft and give you...a driving lesson.

See the one that's winking at you? She's winking because she's gonna give you the herps and then use that pistol to steal your wallet. Be warned fellas, girls with spiders in their lady business wink a lot.

InsetDo you want to know that this guy is thinking about how to get more innovative with crotchless panties? Frederick's of Hollywood was wise to drop Mr. Frederick from their ad copy. Looks too much like a FBI Wanted Poster picture.

This is what happens to cougars?

The ad copy reads

"...After one look at his Mr. Leggs slacks, she was ready to have him walk all over her...If you'd like your own doll to doll carpeting, hunt up a pair of these He-Man Mr. Leggs slacks."

This ad tells me that if you have fancy pants it's ok to stand on a pretty lady's head.

One of my clients has a son the same age as mine so we trade stories and notes and suggestions. A few weeks ago she told me that her and her husband had embarked on the detailed where babies come fromdiscussion. I immediately started thinking that perhaps my husband and I were behind the ball on this one. I asked how it went.

"Oh, not good", she told me, "not at all good."

Apparently this gentle parent-child conversation about the miracles of life had ended with her nine year old son in tears, yep, crying, big, wet, messy nine year old boy tears saying something along the lines of "Daddy does that to you ?" in disbelief and confusion.

So, needless to say, I am a wee bit gun shy about telling my son that yes, Daddy gives me a back rub and begs until I let him put his pizza* in my oven(and sometimes my microwave) and then we watch another episode of Six Feet Under until we fall asleep.

Then I remembered one of my all time favorite books, discovered at my cousin's house so many years ago.

Does this ring a bell for any of you??This is the book that explains an orgasm to kids, so, uh, reading this with my nine year old should be a lot of fun for everyone.

It feels like a sneeze but much better, and if Daddy's feeling generous, you might get four or five"sneezes".My husband and I do not look like that. He has hair on his head and I wax. Oh and for accuracy kids, Daddy's way too tall to have sex in the bathtub. We actually look a lot more like this.Nothing screams intimacy and tenderness like bubble wrap thigh highs on a man.

Unless you're Daddy.

I ordered the puberty version. I figured I'd give Where Did I Come from a chance to sink in before springing puberty on him. Can't wait to hear what he tells his friends.

*I actually told the bebe that Daddy has a pizza rather than a penis since she is all about the tmi right now. I figured this would avoid an embarrassing mishap at places like the grocery store and bank. Now if she tells the teller that I was eating Daddy's pizza, the teller will just think my husband likes to cook traditional southern Italian food. When she's older, I will tell her the truth, that that is where jewelry comes from.